Walter Drobnitzky

Walter Drobnitzky

Walter Drobnitzky (born March 30, 1900 in Liegnitz , † January 22, 1988 in Münster ) was a German Evangelical Lutheran pastor in Upper Silesia and Westphalia . As a leading member and temporarily chairman of the Augsburg Confessional Association of the High Churches , he promoted the " Catholic " renewal of Protestantism in word and in writing and was a pioneer of the ecumenical movement . He was one of Friedrich Heiler's most valued employees .

biography

After studying theology in Breslau - where Joseph Wittig had a lasting influence - and in Halle , Drobnitzky was ordained on January 15, 1925 in the Magdalenenkirche in Breslau . In the same year he became pastor in Königshütte , then in Lipiny , both in the Polish part of Upper Silesia since 1922 . In 1931 Drobnitzky was ordained a priest through Friedrich Heiler, who was ordained bishop in apostolic succession in 1930 . In 1935 he took over the pastor's position at Valerius Herberger's church Kripplein Christi in Fraustadt . During this time the Gestapo became aware of his high church activities and invited him to be interrogated several times. In the Second World War he took part as a divisional pastor, first in France, then in Russia. In 1944 he was wounded in Latvia and was sent to the hospital in Herford . His wife and their four children had found refuge in their parents' house in Spenge in Westphalia . After his recovery, the family was reunited there. At the end of 1945, the leadership of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia commissioned him with pastoral care in the Staumühle internment camp , where the British military government had interned leaders of the Nazi regime and other prisoners of war until 1948. After the camp was dissolved, he was given the third pastoral post in the Apostle Church community in the city center of Münster , which he held until his retirement in 1967. From 1956 he was also the local pastor for the Protestant members of the Bundeswehr in Münster, until 1960 a separate pastor's office was created for this task. After his retirement, Drobnitzky worked as a pastor at the Marienthal Psychiatric Hospital until 1980 .

Act

Drobnitzky belonged to the generation of theologians who had seen the end of the sovereign church regime in 1918 and was looking for a new form and constitution for the Protestant churches.

With the High Church Association, which he joined soon after its founding in 1918, Drobnitzky gave a sacramental answer to the constitutional question. The church is not primarily a community of convictions or even a people's community, but is founded in the foundation of Jesus Christ , which becomes concrete in the universality and continuity of the episcopate and in the sacraments . He combined this view of the Church with the concern of the spiritual intensification of personal and parish life and the recovery of “Catholic”, i.e. H. all-Christian forms in mass and hourly prayer .

The question of the nature and constitution of the church has been exacerbated since 1933 with the Nazi attempts at harmonization in the person of Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller and the German Christians . While Friedrich Heiler uncompromisingly rejected this development from the start, Drobnitzky initially advocated a diplomatic and proactive approach. In 1933 Heiler handed over the leadership of the high church association to Drobnitzky by mutual agreement. The latter sought a meeting with the new Reich Bishop, but this did not materialize. Thereupon he formulated in an open letter the conditions under which the High Churches Association could recognize the new church leadership. The most important thing was that the Reich Bishop clearly separate himself from the Reich leadership of the 'German Christians', especially from their Reichsleiter, who is primarily responsible for the destructive hustle and bustle of Germanic paganism in the church . The letter went unanswered.

While Heiler's and Drobnitzky's goals were primarily those of an internal evangelical renewal, the following years brought an intensive exchange with Roman Catholic theologians, which was completely new territory at the time. At the ecumenical Hermsdorf discussion about the doctrine of grace and ecclesiology (Pentecost 1934), a historical novelty, which u. a. was supported by the Berlin bishop Nikolaus Bares , Drobnitzky was only able to assist in the preparation. It was so fruitful that he and Heiler subsequently developed the plan for a corporative leaning of the High Churches Association in Rome and sent a memorandum to the Curia through Bishop Bares. However, Bares died shortly afterwards, and from Rome only the news reached the world press that Heiler wanted to return to the Catholic Church.

After the war and his time as a camp pastor in Staumühle (1947–1957) Drobnitzky continued his spiritual and ecumenical work in Münster. Despite his pastor's office, he stayed in the former prison camp until the last soldier left the camp. It was his time of repentance for the causes of World War II. The British occupation brought an intense encounter with Anglicanism . After Germany's self-isolation, global contacts became possible. He helped prepare the third world conference of Faith and Order in Lund in 1952. The St. Johannes Chapel became a liturgical and ecumenical center in Münster, where Drobnitzky led the first service on the First Advent in 1948 after almost a century and a half.

After decades of work and testing, the Evangelical Catholic Liturgy of the Hours was published in 1982 , which Drobnitzky had compiled together with a support group following preparatory work by Friedrich Heiler and Albrecht Volkmann exclusively from texts from the Church Fathers ' literature and which is available today from the Association of the High Churches .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Felmy p. 109
2. ↑ Felmy, p. 116
3. ↑ Felmy p. 110
4. ↑ quoted from Hartog, p. 61
5. ↑ Hartog p. 73

literature

• Karl Christian Felmy : Memories of Pastor Walter Drobnitzky . In: Hochkirchliche Vereinigung Augsburgischen Confession (ed.): Seventy Years of High Church Movement (1918–1988) , Bochum 1989, pp. 109–116
• Hans Hartog: Evangelical catholicity. Way and vision Friedrich Heilers , Mainz 1995, ISBN 3-7867-1836-9 , pp. 34, 56, 58, 61-64, 67, 73, 155ff, 160ff, 165ff, 190
• Walter Drobnitzky / Ruth Puffert: From the “youth” of ecumenism , in: Presbytery of the Apostle Church Community (ed.): 700 Years of the Apostle Church in Münster , Münster 1984, pp. 275–279